HAYWARD — An East Bay candy company hopes its popularity in Mexico might be a sign that it could take a bigger bite of the growing Latino market in California.

Hayward-based Annabelle Candy — maker of the classic Rocky Road and Big Hunk candy bars — is printing new packaging in Spanish. The company also is expanding distribution into Latino supermarkets and pledging to play a greater role in Latino organizations to help raise brand awareness.

“We want to grow in a market that hasn’t been adequately addressed in our community,” said Susan Karl, president and chief executive officer of the company founded in 1950 by her grandfather. “We don’t think there has been enough focus on it.”

The company reports annual growth of about 6 percent in Mexico over the past five years, selling more than 3 million candy bars at Costco and other locations in Mexico through a distributor in Southern California. The company has sold its products in Mexico for 25 years, but Karl wanted to do more to draw Latino customers.

“Ultimately, I felt it was really important not only to continue selling in Mexico but to make people in California feel we want them to try our products,” she said. “We want them to know the ingredients and communicate directly with them.”

The company sells its eight candy bars at Safeway, CVS and other large supermarkets or drug chains, mostly on the West Coast, with Big Hunk and Rocky Road tying for the most popular. The company is working with brokers to increase its presence in smaller Latino markets, but it does not have any plans to create new candies specifically formulated for Latino customers.

The Latino population in California has grown 28 percent since 2000, according to 2010 census figures. Yet, according to a survey of 9,300 marketing and advertising executives nationwide in February 2010, 82 percent said they had no plans to increase Latino outreach.

More than a third said they didn’t think an increase in marketing to Latinos would pay off, and half said they do no promotions in Spanish at all.

Ed Basaldua, owner of Park One Properties in Walnut Creek and president of the Contra Costa County chapter of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, agreed that Annabelle’s effort is an anomaly of sorts, but for a different reason. Typically, he said companies try to gain a foothold in the Latino market here before expanding to Mexico, rather than the other way around.

Still, Basaldua said companies may not permeate the market until they raise their profiles within Latino circles, by joining business groups like his and participating in charitable organizations serving Latino families.

“We are finding more and more that people who want to break into the Latino market have to do more on a cultural level than on a language level,” he said. “We are finding people can be very effective just by embracing and being part of the community.”

Karl, 55, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor and former judge in Malibu, said the company has encouraged its 50 employees — 80 percent of whom are Latino — to share ideas on how to support the community. A front office worker led the effort to find new distributors, while another worker recommended adding “Made in the U.S.A.” to packaging because he said Mexican families often desire products made here.

The making of Annabelle Candy is itself part of the “American dream” narrative woven by a generation of immigrants.

Karl’s grandfather, Russian immigrant Sam Altshuler, started the company in 1950, naming it after his daughter, Karl’s mother. After Altshuler’s death in the early 1970s, Annabelle Block ran the company for a number of years, acquiring other candymakers and taking over the manufacturing of brands of candy bars such as U-No and Abba Zaba, before passing the company on to her son and later to Karl, who has been in charge since 1997.

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